The Crystal City Page 0,87

don't have to justify our actions to you, do I?"

"No sir," said Alvin. "It just sounds like your brother's way, to fight like that. I just thought of you as being-more patient, I guess."

"Because we bore the slaughter of our friends and loved ones at Tippy-Canoe."

"Yes. You let them slaughter you till they grew sick of murder."

"But what should we do with people who never grow sick of it?" asked Tenskwa-Tawa.

"So white folks ain't all bad, is what you're saying."

"The gods of the Mexica are thirsty for blood and hungry for pain. White folks generally want to get rich and be left alone. While they're killing you, the motive doesn't make that much difference. But most white people don't think of war and slaughter as the goal-just the means."

"Well, don't that just put us in a special place in hell."

"Alvin, we're going to do what we're going to do. In fact, it's already under way, and we can't control it or stop it now. The forces beneath the earth are vast and terrible and it has taken all our wise men and women of every tribe many months to teach the earth what we need it to do in the city of Mexico."

"And you needed to tell me because Calvin is headed right into it."

"It would grieve me to cause the death of your own brother."

"Trouble is," said Alvin, "there's no time in recorded history when Calvin has actually done what I wanted when I wanted him to."

"I didn't think it would be easy. I only knew that you would not forgive me if I didn't warn you and give you a chance to try."

Alvin sighed and sat down. "I wish I were a boy again."

"With the Unmaker dropping roof beams on your head and sending preachers to bleed you to death under the guise of surgery?"

"At least then it was only me I was trying to save. I can't go follow Calvin to Mexico and try to bring him back, because I got me five thousand or so runaway slaves and refugee Frenchmen from Barcy that I got to find a place for."

Tenskwa-Tawa motioned with his arm to indicate the island where they were sitting. "If you think you can fit five thousand here, you're welcome to it. But only the runaway slaves. My people wouldn't bear it to have these white Frenchmen you speak of living on our land."

"No," said Alvin. "I reckon not."

"Canada is not such a lovely place that we trust the French to be kinder and less bloody than the English or the Spanish."

"We got some of them, too," said Alvin. "Poor folks who threw in their lot with us. But we don't want to live here."

"Good," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "Because it would be beyond my power to persuade the nations to let you."

"What we need," said Alvin, "is safe passage."

"To where?"

"North. Along the edge of the river. North till we're across the river from the United States. Or, more particularly, the free state of Noisy River. Won't do to cross back into slave territory."

"Five thousand people," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "Eating what?"

Alvin grinned. "Whatever the land and the kindness of your hearts will provide them."

"Five thousand people leave a scar on the land when they pass through."

"It's harvest season," said Alvin. "Fields coming ripe, fruit on the trees. Are times so hard this side of the river that you can't spare enough for folks escaping from bondage and oppression?"

"It would take a great amount of effort," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "We aren't like you. We don't grow the food here and then carry it on wagons or trains or barges to sell it there.

Each village grows its own food, and only when famine strikes in one place is food brought from another."

"Well, wouldn't you say that five thousand people with no land or food is kind of a walking famine?"

Tenskwa-Tawa shook his head. "You're asking something very hard. And not just for those reasons. What does it tell all the whites of the United States and the Crown Colonies when five thousand runaway slaves cross over the river despite the fog and then emerge again five hundred miles north?"

"I didn't think of that."

"We'll have them trying to cross into our land by the boatload."

"But they won't make it."

"The fog is fog," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "We instill it with fear, yes, but those with enough greed or rage can overcome that fear. A few try every year, and of those few, now and then a man makes it over."

"What do you